> is there a reason why you haven't upgraded to Windows 7?
Kind of an odd way to put it. I need a reason to upgrade, not a reason not to upgrade.
A Win7 upgrade license costs about twice as much as the X41 is worth.
Win7 is much bigger. The HD in this machine is ~55GiB. XP only takes up 6x GiB of that. Win7 takes 3x - 5x as much in my experience.
I'm not aware of any new features that would substantially improve the user experience on this machine. I use it for writing in a text editor and checking HN from behind a NAT connection. I have zero concerns about security. The evidence I've seen of performance of Win7 vs. XP on very old hardware is mixed.
Best case, I would spend £100 and take a couple of hours reinstalling, finding drivers etc. for some likely imperceptible benefits.
Gotcha. I can relate. It took me a long time to move to Windows 7. Moved because my laptop gave up and I had to get a new one which came pre-installed with win 7. There was no point in downgrading it to XP. I admit to feeling uneasy about the new UI for a few days but then I grew into it. One thing that still awe me is how stable it is. In the past half a decade, I only had one BSOD crash!!
Also on a similar note, a few months back I did upgrade my media center machine from XP to Windows 8. I can can vouch that Windows 8 feels a lot lighter than Windows 7. XBMC+Windows 8 is great combination.
Here's a good reason: in April 2014, Microsoft stops issuing security patches for XP. At that point, any exploits people find(and they will find them) will never be fixed. Your computer will be the easiest target out there.
Not just will this be bad for you(assuming you value your files or do banking on your laptop), but if your compromised computer starts hosting a botnet or attaches viruses to your emails to friends, it's a problem for everyone.
It's a similar problem(though not nearly on the same level) as people who refuse to vaccinate their children.
Kind of an odd way to put it. I need a reason to upgrade, not a reason not to upgrade.
A Win7 upgrade license costs about twice as much as the X41 is worth.
Win7 is much bigger. The HD in this machine is ~55GiB. XP only takes up 6x GiB of that. Win7 takes 3x - 5x as much in my experience.
I'm not aware of any new features that would substantially improve the user experience on this machine. I use it for writing in a text editor and checking HN from behind a NAT connection. I have zero concerns about security. The evidence I've seen of performance of Win7 vs. XP on very old hardware is mixed.
Best case, I would spend £100 and take a couple of hours reinstalling, finding drivers etc. for some likely imperceptible benefits.